UPDATE - UN: Gaza killings by Israel amount to 'war crime'

UPDATE WITH REMARKS FROM UN RIGHTS CHIEF, ISRAEL AND U.S.

By Fatih Erel

GENEVA (AA) - The use of force against Palestinian protesters by Israel amounts to a "war crime" under the Statute of Rome, said the UN rapporteur on Palestine on Friday.

The remarks came in Geneva, at a UN Human Rights Council special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

Speaking via a video recording, Michael Lynk, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, said: "I must point out that the 'willful killing' and the 'willful causing of great suffering or serious injury to body or health' of civilians is both a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime under the Rome Statute."

"The Gazan demonstrations have been almost entirely unarmed and non-violent. Thousands and thousands marching, singing, protesting against their conditions, and demanding the right to a better future," Lynk said.

"Yes, some threw Molotov cocktails, or flew burning kites, or rushed the wire fences at the Gaza frontier. But the overwhelming majority have been committed to non-violence over the past seven weeks, armed only with the oldest and most human of aspirations: to live free in one’s own land," he added.

According to the UN, over the past seven weeks, over 100 Palestinian demonstrators have died at the hands of the Israeli military. Among the dead are children, journalists, medics, and many young unemployed men. Approximately, 12,000 have been injured.

"I note that the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has issued a caution regarding the violence against civilians in Gaza last month," Lynk said.



-'No threat to life or serious injury'

An attempt to approach the fence, to damage the fence, or even to cross the fence, by an unarmed individual faced with heavily armed soldiers would not constitute a threat to life or serious injury that would justify the use of lethal force, he said.

"Similarly, stones, or even Molotov cocktails, thrown at significant distances towards well-protected and heavily armed security forces behind defensive positions, would not rise to the level of threat necessary to justify use of lethal force," he said.

"l call upon the international community, through the United Nations, to conduct an independent and impartial investigation into the killings and injuries that have occurred in the context of these demonstrations since March 30," he said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said during the session: "These people [the killed protesters], many of whom were completely unarmed, were shot in the back, in the chest, in the head and limbs with live ammunition, as well as rubber-coated steel bullets and tear-gas canisters."

"The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has also described the demonstrators as being 'paid by Hamas', and has said the Israeli security forces 'try to minimize casualties,'" he said. "There is little evidence of any attempt to minimize casualties on Monday."

"Killings resulting from the unlawful use of force by an occupying power may also constitute 'wilful killings' -- a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention," he said.

Calling for an investigation that is international, independent and impartial, he added: "Those responsible for violations must in the end be held accountable."

- 'Occupation must end'

"The occupation must end, so the people of Palestine can be liberated, and the people of Israel liberated from it. End the occupation, and the violence and insecurity will largely disappear," he said.

"I urge Israel to act in accordance with its international obligations," he said.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Aviva Raz Shechter said that calling for an independent investigation was "politically motivated".

Shechter criticized protesters for throwing Molotov cocktails, adding that "Israel defends itself".

Israel and the U.S. urged the council to reject the resolution.

"The resolution being considered today establishes a Commission of Inquiry into violations of human rights and humanitarian law. While the United States rejects the assertions that human rights violations took place, it notes that the scale of violence is quite small compared to the worst human rights situations occurring across the globe," Theodore Allegra, charge d'affaires of the U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva, said.

"It is hypocritical for this body to spend time and money on this commission if there are no commissions looking into human rights and atrocities in the DPRK [North Korea], Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and the Russian occupation of Crimea," Allegra said.

"The continued anti-Israel bias of this council does nothing to promote that future, and the one-sided action proposed by this council today only further shows that the Human Rights Council is a broken body," he claimed.

On Monday, at least 62 Palestinian demonstrators were martyred and thousands more injured by Israeli armed forces along the Gaza-Israel fence, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Thousands of Palestinians had gathered on the Gaza Strip’s eastern border to take part in protests marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel -- which Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, Arabic for "Catastrophe" -- and protest the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.